Jan Fabre's The Power of Theatrical Follies, commissioned by the Venice Biennale, premièred in 1984 when Fabre was only 25 years old. It soon became to be known as "Belgium's answer to Pina Bausch, Laurie Anderson, Peter Brook and Robert Wilson" on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean (Rockwell). The originally four-hour long performance, typically for post-dramatic theatre - rather than building up a story around the main text - combined elements of opera, dance, visual projection, physical theatre with nudity, as well as text in the form of citations with references to historical events - all strenuously unhurried and in a numbing fashion.
The endless repetitions earned The Power as many enthusiast as enemies. The show is literally packed with disturbing scenes, from killing frogs to a blindfolded tenor attempting to kill another actor. But this is in line with Fabre's vision of theatre, according to Luk van den Dries in his Corpus Jan Fabre:
He toys with danger, but remains within the conventions of the genre, [...] he goes all the way in playing the game of theatrical fiction. He eats out of the hand of make-believe. He exposes theatre as the place of appearances and deceit. [...] He doesn't smuggle any reality on the stage. He rather kicks it out in order to be left with the essence of theatricality: the beautiful lie of theatre. (Dries, 18)
This essence reveals itself especially in the strikingly beautiful scene somewhere three quarters through the show (perhaps a bit too late to keep the less patient audience in their seats), where four men carry four women to the front of the stage just to put them down on the floor and slowly go back to their initial positions. Each time the men take some of their clothes off until they are completely naked - apart from their white socks which reveal dirt on the soles of their feet as they slowly walk away from the sleeping beauties (they later wash the socks on stage), while the women keep on wandering back in frenzy and throwing themselves onto men's arms. The repetition goes on and the women are now almost lifeless, yet in the moments of their lunatic struggle they display sparks of romantic seductiveness. The scene is powerful not only because of the images it represents but also through the repetitions and the exposure of the body (about which I will write more in the following paragraph), precisely because "it brings with it nothing less than the threat of nothingness" as Hans-Thies Lehman adequately puts it. We read in his Postdramatic Theatre that Jan Fabres's work, being "bereft its usual crutches of comprehension", demonstrates what has replaced drama: "the sensuously intensified perceptibility comes to the fore" (Lehman 99).
As we come to think of what the performance is about, the title really suggests the answer. It is about the theatre - its illusions, forms, history, power, relations with other arts and life itself, and again, and foremost The Theatre. I would even go as far as saying that Fabre by doing theatre about the theatricality of the theatre makes an attempt at deconstructing the theatre from within and through its own power. All of it seems to surface during the fast-paced scene where dancers run in place and shout out recognisable moments from avant-garde theatre of 20th century. In the background we see a naked prince getting dressed by a blind helper in a suit and a historical art image projected on them at a bare backdrop - constituting the entire scenography throughout the performance (excluding props such as plates, buckets, knives and alas - frogs). The image is a part of Michelangelo Buonarroti's Creation of Adam fresco of the Sistine Chapel in Rome from early 16th century. The detail with God's and Adam's hands represents the communication between gods and heroes, and is recurrent throughout Fabre's piece from the start, where it serves as the landscape for the two naked dancing princes.
After this lengthy exhausting exercise the dancers take a break for a cigarette and stare at the audience. Is this real - real part of the performance, or real part of reality? Are the numerous instances of non-theatrical actions such as tidying the stage part of the show? Certainly they are, and drawing the connection with non-performative ordinary behaviour they reveal the artificiality - and power - of "theatrical follies" The historical references bring to light the connection between Fabre's work and the entire theatre history: "Fabre's work is essentially tragic - and modern tragedy borders of course on the grotesque, on satire, on the sinister" (Dries 5). The image of the body and the exposure of its limitations and inclination to earthly pleasures and rewards such as smoking (or killing, gluttony and lust in the former scenes) represent the vision on man and world. In The Power the bodies are given form that speaks through movement, the skin, the muscles, as well as through silences and screams.
To conclude, I would like to base my personal judgement in a historical perspective, as I am almost certain that The Power would have had enormous impression on me, if I saw it live in the 80s. Even now - taking into consideration my familiarity with dozens of contemporary, avant-garde, experimental, postdramatic, postmodern, site-specific, theatre, dance and what not performances, as well as the abundance of shocking images in today's media, The Power stroke me as exceptional both in its excellent staging and playing technique, and its indigestible images and tiring lengthy repetitions. I would like to know what would Jan Fabre change in The Power, or whether he would change anything at all, to put through his thoughts and ideas to the art world and audiences today. I am also curious what those thoughts and ideas are, as judging from his recent productions - such as Another Sleepy Dusty Delta Day, presented in Amsterdam Schouwburg at last year Juli Dans Festival, which was rather trivial - there aren't many ground-braking visions or concepts left in his theatrical work any more. Lets hope it is only a temporary crisis.
Works Cited
Dries, Luk van den. Corpus Jan Fabre. Gent: Imschoot uitgevers, 2006.
Lehman, Hans-Thies. Postdramatic Theatre. New York: Routledge 2006.
Rockwell, John. "Stage: Jan Fabre's 'Theatrical madness'." The New York Times 8 February 1986. New York Times Online. 15 Mar. 2011.
<http://theater.nytimes.com/mem/theater/treview.html? _r=1&res=9A0DE0DE163CF93BA35751C0A96
He toys with danger, but remains within the conventions of the genre, [...] he goes all the way in playing the game of theatrical fiction. He eats out of the hand of make-believe. He exposes theatre as the place of appearances and deceit. [...] He doesn't smuggle any reality on the stage. He rather kicks it out in order to be left with the essence of theatricality: the beautiful lie of theatre. (Dries, 18)
This essence reveals itself especially in the strikingly beautiful scene somewhere three quarters through the show (perhaps a bit too late to keep the less patient audience in their seats), where four men carry four women to the front of the stage just to put them down on the floor and slowly go back to their initial positions. Each time the men take some of their clothes off until they are completely naked - apart from their white socks which reveal dirt on the soles of their feet as they slowly walk away from the sleeping beauties (they later wash the socks on stage), while the women keep on wandering back in frenzy and throwing themselves onto men's arms. The repetition goes on and the women are now almost lifeless, yet in the moments of their lunatic struggle they display sparks of romantic seductiveness. The scene is powerful not only because of the images it represents but also through the repetitions and the exposure of the body (about which I will write more in the following paragraph), precisely because "it brings with it nothing less than the threat of nothingness" as Hans-Thies Lehman adequately puts it. We read in his Postdramatic Theatre that Jan Fabres's work, being "bereft its usual crutches of comprehension", demonstrates what has replaced drama: "the sensuously intensified perceptibility comes to the fore" (Lehman 99).
As we come to think of what the performance is about, the title really suggests the answer. It is about the theatre - its illusions, forms, history, power, relations with other arts and life itself, and again, and foremost The Theatre. I would even go as far as saying that Fabre by doing theatre about the theatricality of the theatre makes an attempt at deconstructing the theatre from within and through its own power. All of it seems to surface during the fast-paced scene where dancers run in place and shout out recognisable moments from avant-garde theatre of 20th century. In the background we see a naked prince getting dressed by a blind helper in a suit and a historical art image projected on them at a bare backdrop - constituting the entire scenography throughout the performance (excluding props such as plates, buckets, knives and alas - frogs). The image is a part of Michelangelo Buonarroti's Creation of Adam fresco of the Sistine Chapel in Rome from early 16th century. The detail with God's and Adam's hands represents the communication between gods and heroes, and is recurrent throughout Fabre's piece from the start, where it serves as the landscape for the two naked dancing princes.
After this lengthy exhausting exercise the dancers take a break for a cigarette and stare at the audience. Is this real - real part of the performance, or real part of reality? Are the numerous instances of non-theatrical actions such as tidying the stage part of the show? Certainly they are, and drawing the connection with non-performative ordinary behaviour they reveal the artificiality - and power - of "theatrical follies" The historical references bring to light the connection between Fabre's work and the entire theatre history: "Fabre's work is essentially tragic - and modern tragedy borders of course on the grotesque, on satire, on the sinister" (Dries 5). The image of the body and the exposure of its limitations and inclination to earthly pleasures and rewards such as smoking (or killing, gluttony and lust in the former scenes) represent the vision on man and world. In The Power the bodies are given form that speaks through movement, the skin, the muscles, as well as through silences and screams.
To conclude, I would like to base my personal judgement in a historical perspective, as I am almost certain that The Power would have had enormous impression on me, if I saw it live in the 80s. Even now - taking into consideration my familiarity with dozens of contemporary, avant-garde, experimental, postdramatic, postmodern, site-specific, theatre, dance and what not performances, as well as the abundance of shocking images in today's media, The Power stroke me as exceptional both in its excellent staging and playing technique, and its indigestible images and tiring lengthy repetitions. I would like to know what would Jan Fabre change in The Power, or whether he would change anything at all, to put through his thoughts and ideas to the art world and audiences today. I am also curious what those thoughts and ideas are, as judging from his recent productions - such as Another Sleepy Dusty Delta Day, presented in Amsterdam Schouwburg at last year Juli Dans Festival, which was rather trivial - there aren't many ground-braking visions or concepts left in his theatrical work any more. Lets hope it is only a temporary crisis.
Works Cited
Dries, Luk van den. Corpus Jan Fabre. Gent: Imschoot uitgevers, 2006.
Lehman, Hans-Thies. Postdramatic Theatre. New York: Routledge 2006.
Rockwell, John. "Stage: Jan Fabre's 'Theatrical madness'." The New York Times 8 February 1986. New York Times Online. 15 Mar. 2011.
<http://theater.nytimes.com/mem/theater/treview.html? _r=1&res=9A0DE0DE163CF93BA35751C0A96